Bites tongue as wonders about the veracity of this.
I mean, Henri Boffin?
And what are "ESO and ePOD"? Does Steve Jobs know about them?
Interestingly, and laudably, the press release links to a PDF file of the
original paper. Too many press release hang on a paper that is not made
available to writers unless they jump through various hoops.
As this is the first sentence of the abstract:
"Spectroscopic analyses of hydrogen-rich WN5–6 stars within the young star
clusters NGC 3603 and R136 are presented, using archival Hubble Space
Telescope and Very Large Telescope spectroscopy, and high spatial resolution
near-IR photometry, including Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics Demonstrator
(MAD) imaging of R136."
I reckon that the press officer concerned must have had to work hard to get
anything out of it.
Thanks to everyone for butting in on this saga. It is certainly something to
add to my presentations warning scientists of the perils of dealing with
journalists.
MK
-----Original Message-----
From: psci-com: on public engagement with science
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Oli Usher
Sent: 27 July 2010 14:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PSCI-COM] Massive star R136
Dear all,
My colleague Henri Boffin is the public information officer in charge of
the story, and he does not subscribe to this list. He has asked me to
send this to psci-com on his behalf:
=======
We are glad to see that the ESO press release on R136 led to some lively
discussion on this mailing list. Following this, we thought it useful to
include a note ([3]) in the press release
(http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1030/#3), as the use of the adjective
"bigger" seems to have led to some confusion.
We would also like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that all
Science Releases issued by ESO are approved by the scientists involved
in the discovery (lead-author of the paper or team leader), as well as
by senior astronomers at ESO. Science Releases are generally (and it was
the case here as well) based on an accepted refereed paper, which is
also provided. The Press Officer is also a senior scientist.
Dr. Henri Boffin, ESO ePOD
=======
--
Oli Usher
Junior ESA/Hubble Public Information Officer
Education and Public Outreach Department
European Southern Observatory
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, D-85748 Garching bei München, Germany
Telephone: +49 89 3200 6855
Mobile (Germany): +49 176 7648 2193
Mobile (UK): +44 7754 130 109
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: www.spacetelescope.org, www.eso.org
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